


hiding my heart away

by leigh57



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:25:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leigh57/pseuds/leigh57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Another fic from Christmas 2011. The complete list of prompts is <a href="http://leigh57.livejournal.com/139488.html">here</a>. All fail, canon or otherwise, is mine and mine alone. Not exactly my area of expertise.</p><p>Title is from Brandi Carlile's "Again Today/Hiding My Heart."</p>
    </blockquote>





	hiding my heart away

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic from Christmas 2011. The complete list of prompts is [here](http://leigh57.livejournal.com/139488.html). All fail, canon or otherwise, is mine and mine alone. Not exactly my area of expertise.
> 
> Title is from Brandi Carlile's "Again Today/Hiding My Heart."

The fumbling make-out session on the lumpy basement couch is (like eighty percent of the shit she does in life) an accident, too much straight-from-the-bottle bourbon and not enough impulse control.

It takes about five seconds (his tongue on her lip, his fingers pushing aside the fabric of her bra) for her to realize that kissing Lee is something like striking a match when you didn’t realize you were surrounded by lighter fluid.

Later, fidgety and restless in her bed (thumb stuck through a hole in the sheet, worrying the frayed cotton), she can’t relax until she slides her hand into her underwear and takes the edge off by herself.

Her face pulses hot in the ashy darkness, but (despite the circumstances) she’s not stupid enough to mistake this feeling for arousal.

It’s shame.

She’s not used to it.

************

In the morning (pale, puffy-eyed, hungover as frak), she drags Lee to the shitty gym where she works out when she has no choice but to be ‘home.’

The whole place smells like sweat stains and old sneakers, like you could come through here with all the disinfectant in the world and you’d only be masking what’s underneath, waiting to pounce.

“Nice place,” Lee observes, stripping off his hoodie.

“Frak you,” she shoots back automatically.

But the words hold added shading now, and instead of glaring at him (jaw set, shoulders back) like she normally would, she double-knots her shoelace.

Her flight instructor specifically told her not to add weight to her routine for another two weeks, but she throws an extra twenty pounds on every machine.

Lee watches with a raised eyebrow and a skeptical quirk at the edge of his mouth. The quirk vanishes when she surprises even herself by making it all the way through their standard circuit, three sets of twelve.

She’ll hurt like a motherfrakker tomorrow, but it’s worth every future wince to see the admiration in Lee’s eyes.

************

On Christmas Eve, she puts on _makeup_ (burgundy lipstick, deep grey eyeliner) and takes him to the swankiest bar in town -- the place where the wood floor’s so polished that each ceiling light creates a little reflected star, where the bartenders have clean fingernails, where there’s no creepy dickhead a few feet away, staring at her as if she forgot to put on a shirt.

The place she can’t afford, but she’s not gonna think about that tonight.

Her mom passed out on the couch before Kara could finish cooking the fancy soup she’d been planning for a month, recipe tucked into the pocket of her flight jacket so she’d remember to grab obscure ingredients when she had time.

She scrunches it into a ball and throws it in the trash, watching the stubborn paper expand again with mocking crinkles she swears the entire bar must be able to hear.

Fresh pints in front of them (tiny explosions of foam), she and Lee make safe stale small talk. They babble about the combat training maneuver that almost went south last week, about their new shithead flight instructor who has a Sequoia-sized pole up his ass and doesn’t believe in rack time, about the three pathetic rookie recruits who washed out within their first four days.

When the inevitable awkward lull hits (a fraction of a second before she’s literally going to say something about the weather), Lee puts down his beer and says, “I just realized this is the first time I’ve seen you in a dress.” He swallows. “You look great.”

She studies the liquid level in his glass. He’s not even a third down on the pint, so it can’t be the alcohol talking.

Knee-jerk as always, she’s about to smack back with a smart-assed retort when it occurs to her that what he just said is as close as they’ll ever get to acknowledging what happened.

“Thanks.” She gulps beer. “But I can still frak you up at pool wearing these heels.”

He scoffs. “You wish.”

She grins, slides off the barstool. “Let’s find out.”

She’s digging in her wallet when she feels Lee’s hand on her bare elbow (she ignores the shiver that dances from her arm to the nape of her neck).

“This one’s on me.”

She has to bite her tongue (really -- she tastes blood), but she sticks the wallet back in her fancy handbag, cast-off from a rich high school ‘friend.’

And she lets him pay.

************

The cue hits the solid three, a satisfying smack that sends the ball in a straight line to the left corner.

Lee whistles, low. “Nice shot.”

“Thanks. Bet you can’t put the four in that corner.” She gestures, smirking.

“Bullshit.”

“Prove it.” She hands him the stick they’re sharing.

While she watches him line up his shot -- muscles moving under cloth and nothing in his eyes but the thrill of genuine competition -- she kicks off the ridiculous black four-inch heels she found in the back of her closet while Lee was shaving.

The shiny waxed wood feels a little less like sand under her aching feet.


End file.
